Joan Louise Oates, FBA (née Lines; 6 May 1928 – 3 February 2023) was an American-British archaeologist and academic, specialising in the Ancient Near East.
[4] She obtained her BA at Syracuse University, graduating in Chemistry and Social Anthropology in 1950,[5] before winning a Fulbright Scholarship to study at Girton College, Cambridge, where she received a PhD in 1953.
Oates began her career as an assistant curator in the Department of Near Eastern Antiquities at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and continued to visit Nimrud with Max Mallowan each year.
[5] She married David Oates in 1956 and they worked together on archaeological excavations in Nimrud, Ain Sinu, Nippur and Choga Mami.
[5] After the birth of her children, Oates played a less active role in excavations, but continued to participate by documenting the finds, particularly potsherds.
[2] In 1988 she was a Visiting Scholar at the Smithsonian in Washington DC, and in 1989 she became a lecturer in the history and archaeology of the Ancient Near East at the University of Cambridge.